NEW YORK (WABC) — A single ticket holder in Maine will be celebrating a very happy New Year after that ticket was the only one to match all six numbers drawn in Friday night’s Mega Millions drawing.
The prize is about $1.35 billion ($724.6 million in cash), which is the second largest prize in the history of the game!
The numbers drawn on Friday night were: 30, 43, 45, 46, 61 and Mega Golden Ball 14.
Even if you weren’t the only winning ticket holder, don’t throw away the tickets just yet. A million dollars worth of tickets were sold to Mega News Inc in Manhattan and Momta Grocery Inc in Long Island City.
The jackpot had been sitting since it was last won on October 14, when a $502 million prize was handed out to winning tickets in California and Florida.
This run of 26 draws ends with a bang, with 7,072,832 winning tickets across the nine prize levels in the January 13 drawing alone, including the prize winning ticket. Fourteen innings matched all five white balls to win the game’s second-tier prize of $1 million. Four were sold in New York, two in California and one each in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas.
To match four white balls plus the Mega Ball, 164 entries have a third-level win. Of these, 27 included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an additional $1 purchase), which was 2X on Friday night; they are worth $20,000 each. The remaining 137 second-tier winning entries take home the standard prize of $10,000.
The chances of winning a Mega Millions drawing are slim – almost one in 303 million.
Friday night’s jackpot win is the seventh on a Friday the 13th since the game began in 2002, and the first on such a day since October 2017.
Michigan has been very lucky with Friday the 13th Mega Millions jackpots, winning four (June 2008, May 2011, June 2014 and October 2017). That 2017 jackpot was shared with a winner in Rhode Island. Other Friday the 13th jackpots have been won in New York (March 2009) and Ohio (November 2015). None of them, however, came close in size to the $1.35 billion estimated on this occasion.
Here are the 10 largest US jackpots won and the states where the winning tickets were sold:
1. $2.04 billion, Powerball, November 8, 2022 (one ticket, from California)
2. $1.586 billion, Powerball, January 13, 2016 (three tickets, from California, Florida, Tennessee)
3. $1.537 billion, Mega Millions, October 23, 2018 (one ticket, from South Carolina)
4. $1.35 billion, Mega Millions, January 13, 2023 (a Maine ticket)
5. $1.337 billion, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022 (one ticket, from Illinois)
6. $1.05 billion, Mega Millions, January 22, 2021 (one ticket, from Michigan)
7. $768.4 million, Powerball, March 27, 2019 (one ticket, from Wisconsin)
8. $758.7 million, Powerball, August 23, 2017 (one ticket, from Massachusetts)
9. $731.1 million, Powerball, January 20, 2021 (one ticket, from Maryland)
10. $699.8 million, Powerball, October 4, 2021 (one ticket, from California)
RELATED: Here’s What You Could Buy If You Win
The credit for the recent big prizes is actually due to the harder math and odds.
In the fall of 2017, lottery officials approved changes to Mega Millions that significantly stretched the odds from one in 258.9 million to one in 302.6 million. They made similar changes to Powerball in October 2015, worsening the odds from one in 175.2 million to one in 292.2 million.
The idea was that by making jackpots less common, ticket revenue could increase week after week, creating giant prizes that would draw attention and attract more players than if they had been inflated by $100 million or $200 million of main prizes.
In August 2021, Powerball also added a third weekly drawing, which allowed the jackpot to roll over and grow even faster as people had more chances to play and lose. Mega Millions has kept the two weekly drawings.
Thanks to these moves, nine of the top 10 lottery prizes have been won since 2017.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states as well as Washington, DC and the US Virgin Islands.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
WATCH: New York State Lottery draws live daily at 2:30pm and 10:30pm and Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8:15pm
Powerball Drawings are also broadcast here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays at 22:59
Mega Millions Drawings are broadcast on Tuesdays and Fridays at 11:00 p.m
The New York Lottery is the largest and most profitable in North America, contributing billions of dollars to help support education in New York State.
Revenue is distributed to local school districts using the same statutory formula used to distribute other state aid to education. According to the New York Lottery, the formula takes into account both the size of a school district and its income level; larger, lower-income school districts receive proportionally larger shares of lottery school funding.
For more information about the New York Lottery and to view lottery results, visit nylottery.ny.gov..
New Yorkers struggling with a gambling addiction, or who know someone who is, can find help by calling the state’s free, confidential HOPENY line at 1-877-8-HOPENY (1-877-846-7369) or by texting HOPENY ( 467369). Standard text rates may apply.
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